37 



tion of an east-to-west flight, which appeared in The Naturalist, 

 1894 (p. 420). He writes: "As a rule the small summer 

 visitants to northern and central Europe, such of them as reach 

 the coast of Great Britain in the autumn passage, do not pass 

 inland or cross the country, but follow the coast line south. This 

 is the case with the Eing Ousel, Wheatear, Eedstart, Willow 

 Wren, Pied Flycatcher, Yellow Wagtail, and a great many other 

 small species far too numerous to mention, and so much is this the 

 rule that an observer residing a few miles inland will be ignorant 

 of the immense movement going forward within so short a 

 distance." The latter remark also throws some light on the 

 question of migration in a broad front. 



The above extracts will be sufficient evidence to prove that 

 Mr. Cordeaux fully recognises a strong migratory movement 

 travelling between the points of north and north-east to south 

 and south-west, and that the opinions expressed in his writings 

 referred to by Herr Gatke are only to be applied in a limited 

 sense. 



Further references to the opinions expressed by the same 

 gentlemen, that many of the migrants arriving in north Lincoln- 

 shire from over the sea reach the latter locality from a due 

 easterly direction, though somewhat contradictory to those 

 previously quoted, may possibly be explained in the following 

 manner. Birds crossing the North Sea from north-east to south- 

 west, on first catching sight of the land when out at sea, will very 

 probably so alter the course of their flight in order to reach it as 

 early as possible, as to give an observer the impression that they 

 I fibre coming in directly from the east. 



Mr. W. Eagle Clarke, however, on whose shoulders has fallen 

 the labour of digesting the immense amount of material fur- 

 nished by the observations of light-house keepers and others 

 at the instance of the Committee appointed by the British Asso- 

 . ciation to study the question of migration has expressed himself 

 very decisively on the supposed identity of the migration over 

 Heligoland with that affecting our east coasts by a direct east-to- 

 west flight. On p. 7 of his digest he remarks : " Much prominence 

 i has been given in some of the Annual Keports issued by the 

 Committee, and in Herr Gatke's book, 'Die Volgelwarte Helgo- 



